Quick review of The Singularity is Near – When Humans Transcend Biology

This is one of those complex big books, with lots and lots of technical details, hundreds of references and dozens of new words to your vocabulary. What some would call a book nightmare, this is certainly not the case. Albeit long, it was extremely well written, and once you get started you can’t stop it until is over. Ray Kurzweil is a futurist who have been devoting his life predicting the future, and his work in this book consists of a thorough elaboration on what is currently on the works for the future with impressive details on how he sees it unfold and it is guaranteed to blow your mind.

An uncommon term for the non geek and non mathematician, Singularity is described by Ray as the moment in our history where computers will achieve human level intelligence and quickly surpass it, taking an ever growing (exponential growth, by the way) part of our lives and eventually even becoming parts of us (if not the whole, really).

The book goes from the law of accelerating returns, to Space Exploration, Ethics, Robotics and strong AI with an in depth analysis of current and future Genetics and Nanotechnology, arguing that this revolution is just a few years away. For a fact, this book’s predictions are already growing outdated in some areas, as some of these ideas have just become true a couple years ago.

Failing no other future prediction, and in accordance with Arthur C. Clarke definition of future prediction work, Ray is been targeted by critics all around. I’m definitely skeptical on some of what he predicts that Singularity will ultimately become, but I believe he is going in the right direction and I certainly concur and anxiously await for the marvelous technological improvements to life that future awaits.

Masterpiece. This book certainly goes to the list of my top must reads. It is eye opening and it is guaranteed to make your mind blossom with ideas and possibilities for the future.